Stargate SG:1 Project Collins
by Ariston-1
Summary: A first hand account, of how one person, against all odds? had found them self working on one of the most Classified Military Projects, in Human History. The Stargate Program.


_The Stargate Program, had always been at the forefront of human exploration, even though the vast majority of the planet, had never even heard of said program. After all, who would believe that Humanity had explored distant worlds both within our galaxy and beyond? I know that I had never imagined such a possibility, until I received three visitors to my home during a celebration._

I'll start at the beginning, since that's always a good place to start.

I was born in the North-West of England and into a modest home. Both my parents, worked in a warehouse several miles away, and where well? Less than happy, with their employment. They had given myself, everything that I had wanted throughout my childhood, often one or both had worked double shifts in order to pay for what I had needed as either Birthday or Christmas gifts. They had said that at an early age, I had displayed an intellect, beyond their own, which I had found funny as both of my parents, where the most intelligent people that I had known in my life. I am serious, my father knew things about space and time, that others could have only dreamt of knowing, amongst other things as he had read up on anything which had peaked his interest. The only flaw, was that his knowledge, had never been followed by qualifications of any kind, even though he had studied on a daily basis from anything that he could find. My mother on the other hand, had the qualifications, but had opted to raise her child, in favour of following her qualifications throughout my childhood.

I was in High School, at the time when a challenge had been issued by a teacher, a challenge to explain a mere calculation which had been given to the school, by an outside source. A theoretical challenge, actually. My parents, had still worked at the profession that they had hated, I could see that it was slowly ripping away at their very souls, with each day which had passed, when I had been given said assignment. I remember that I had worked on the assignment, for weeks in solitude of my bedroom, an assignment which had pushed the very boundaries of what I had known.

One day in the later quarter of my final school year, no one had turned in anything even remotely close to a solution to the assignment. My father had booked a week of from work to simply relax, when I returned home from school, expecting to see him sat watching movies on TV, as he had for the past three days of that week? He was sat in the middle of our living room, with the furniture pushed back against the walls. Balls of paper thrown around the room with others scattered around himself.

"Hey Dad. What are you doing, when Mom gets home? She's going to pissed off at this…"

"Take your coat off and sit down. Look at this and tell me what you see?" He called out, with an excitement that I had never seen before.

"Dad, I…"

"This is your Homework. What are they teaching you… in school?" He called out, as he leapt to his feet to hand me a piece of paper.

I could rarely read my Dad's writing since his right hand had been broken several times, in several places and as such, his writing was exactly neat. Saying that however, I did see what he had written on that single piece of paper he had placed into my hands. He hadn't solved the assignment, but he was getting very close to a solution. All I remember doing, was dropping my coat and bag onto the carpet as I slowly sat in the middle of the floor, reading what he had written. He was half of the way there, with some interesting twists to his theory.

Around eight in the evening, my mother finally stepped through the door and seeing the room in such a state, her first reaction was to yell. Hell, we had pizza boxes and half eaten pizzas across the living room floor, and I was still sat in my school uniform, as I had been drawn into the solution to the puzzle which had been given to the students, by someone nameless.

"What the hell, you're not even…"

"Mom, look at this?"

"You should be relaxing, not…"

"Hannah, this is amazing" My dad called out, to mom. "I was cleaning her room, when I found this puzzle. Just, look at this for a moment please?"

We must've stayed up, all night together, the three of us just sat on the carpeted floor together. Each of us, offering ideas forwards, discarding many before arriving at a possible solution, to a seemingly impossible puzzle. We had no idea, what we had, but we had a solution to not the actual question, but what we had later discovered as, the question which had been hidden, deep inside of the assignment.

Needless to say, the next day, a Thursday? I did not show up for school as we had worked together, into the earliest hours. Friday arrived, I had yet to report to school and my mother had not reported to her work as we had worked on refining the solution, even throughout the weekend. Monday, arrived very quickly, rested and relaxed, eventually? I had returned to school to submit the solution, which had been due for the Friday. Let's just say that I had failed the assignment for being late. I had no idea, what would follow, three months later.

I had turned sixteen, just a week before Christmas. We had arranged a fancy dress party, to welcome in the new year. My dad had dressed in his usual Captain Kirk costume, my mom dressed as a female Star Trek Captain, myself? I was dressed as my favourite, Supergirl. Our friends and family where enjoying the party, before a knock at the door, echoed through the house. Laughing and joking with my friends, I was closest to the door which I stepped towards to open, only to see three people stood on the front step, wearing matching costumes.

"Hi, sorry. This is a private party. Nice job, with the matching uniforms. Not original though, we have a General in the back somewhere…" I said with a large smile.

"I am Major Samantha Carter, United States…"

"Oh, you're with _General_ Mallory? He said that someone would be dropping by. Come in, hey? Great job on those uniforms, they look almost… real" I said with laughter, as I drank from a cup of warm and cola I had been nursing, for awhile.

"I am Major Samantha Carter…"

"Jesus, drop the identity. This is just a New Year party…"

"May I speak with a Miss, Lucile Collins?" The blonde woman replied, as she presented her identification.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing, the identification was real. As was the identification cards as presented by the two males behind the Major and each, displaying a United States Military authentication stamp.

"_Mom, Dad?_" I screamed out, instantly.

My parents, where instantly at my side as they looked at the three people before me, their eyes examining the identification cards, closely before my father stepped before me, protecting me as I stepped backwards instantly in fear.

"Mister and Missus Collins? I am Major Samantha Carter, United States Air Force. May I have a moment of your time, and in private please?"

"United States? You're a little off here Major. This is England…"

My father trailed off in that moment, as we all saw several British Army Officers, stood on our front lawn and in the street before our home. Neither of us, could have imagined what we where about to enter into, a world which had existed beneath our own for a long time. A highly classified world of the highest level of military secrets. Myself and my parents, where taken into a large and unmarked van which had been parked around the corner from our home. Inside of the black van, sat a man whom never spoke, only look at each of us in turn. I was afraid of that man.

"Mister and Missus Collins, Miss Collins. Do either of you recognise this theory?" Major Carter asked, as my own once submission, appeared on one of the three small screens in the rear of the van.

"That's my homework. I remember that, how did you get that?"

"Answer, the question Miss Collins. How do you get this, formula?" Abruptly called out a man. from the darkness at the front of the van.

"Lucy? Don't answer. They're out of their jurisdiction and they know it" My father called out, instantly.

"I was, I mean my class? Was given a question to answer as a test. Did I do something wrong?"

Silence, filled the van for what had seemed like an eternity, before the Major smiled. It must have been a nightmare for the Major and her people at that time, as everyone from the party had spilled out of our home and onto the street before the van. Hell, they where just celebrating the New Year after all, right? We where dropped off and told never to speak of this again, I got the feeling that it was at gun-point. I had to know why. Two days later, I returned to the work which I had left, what in our absence and in their van, hadn't been stolen anyway? Everything that I had written, I had always kept a copy of, and I mean everything.

I had no idea what I had. I read and reread that damned paper, over and over for weeks, months at a time until I had applied for a job, a simple job after leaving school. The interview, was going great until a single phone call had been received by my interviewer. I had never seen anyone turn so pale, so fast and it would not be the first time but four times, in four separate interviews, with four different companies.

So now? I'm going to skip forwards by several months, fourteen to be exact. I was broke, destitute as no one would hire me, even my parents had lost their jobs and their life savings, even their Redundancy Settlement, had vanished. We where living in a one bedroom flat, I slept on the floor. After just three weeks of living on what had remained of nothing? Our luck, had seemingly changed with first class plane tickets, falling onto our doorstep. An all expenses paid trip, to of all places of the world? Colorado in the United States. We had nothing left to loose, we took the tickets. We where expecting to see the United States. However, we where met at the Airport by men in black suits whom had pushed us into an unmarked black van, the moment we had exited the Airport. The next thing I knew, I awoke in some kind of underground bunker, before the very Major that had once visited my home.

"This, is kidnapping!" I cried out, instantly. "Where are my parents, answer me!"

"Please forgive the way that you where brought here Miss Collins. We had to get you off of the streets and quickly. Your parents are fine, they are next-door being debriefed by my superiors. Please, allow me to explain what I can. May I sit?"

"Not until I speak with my parents, Major. I demand to see them now"

"You must be hungry. Airman, get Miss Collins here something to eat and drink" Major Carter ordered an elderly man, as he nodded politely.

"Why am I being held here, and what do you mean, get us off the streets. What is happening?"

"Somehow, your… school assignment? Has stumbled upon a secret that the United States Military along with several other nations, have been keeping for a long time. Several years ago, a… _Question_, was sent out to the top scientists on the planet. We don't know how or why yet? But somehow your teacher had gotten a hold of a portion of that question, which yourself and your parents have apparently solved. Do you have any idea what you have discovered?"

"It was a theoretical assignment in Astronomy class, we had identified it as some form of Wormhole theory. But, wormholes aren't real. It was just a theory"

I could tell instantly that the Major was surprised by what I had said, I could also sense that she was holding something back, I just had no idea what it was, I could not have imagined what world I was to be thrown into, feet first. In the days and weeks which had followed, myself and my parents had remained in the underground bunker, somewhere in the United States of America, almost like prisoners. Every so often, we would hear alarm klaxons ringing out through the facility as we had lost all track of time, not even knowing if it was day or night. It was clear that they where testing myself and my parents, as more works similar to what we had written, had been placed before the three of us. It didn't take long before I began to see a pattern forming in what we had been assigned to study.

We where not only visited by the Major, but a very large man with some form of tattoo embedded in his forehead. I had never seen a man so large in my life, his arms are thicker than my waist. He seemed to be a civilian, now I know it wasn't due to his huge stature? But, he commanded a lot of respect from those inside of the facility. Another man, was a rather unusual Colonel, named O'Neill. I actually liked him as he seemed nothing like those I had spoken with over the what weeks, possibly months since I had been there? There was a third man, whom to me was the puzzle in himself, of all things? An Archaeologist, why was he not only working with the Military, but as with the Hulk, as I had called him? Commanded respect from those wearing uniforms.

We had a great room, which was several times larger than what we had lived in, back in the UK. Almost a luxury by comparison actually. Eventually, the Colonel entered the room with short and stout man, baring General insignias on his shoulders. He just looked so damned familiar, I couldn't figure out from where at first.

"Hello, I am General Hammond"

"General, what the hell is going on. Why are we being held without charge?" My father asked, as he stood instantly.

"You're not being held, Mister Collins. You are guests of the Air Force. You've been cooped up in here for three weeks, during which time I am sorry to say, that we have been testing you, all of you. Walk with me, the three of you and I will explain, everything"

For the first time since we had arrived, we had finally left the quarters where we had been kept. It was clear that we where in an underground military base, but where and what are they hiding? It was a large facility, and Spartan in décor, but there are some comforts such as gym amongst other things. After a meal with the General, the Colonel and what we had discovered as his military team, we had been led into the General's office through a back entrance, windows had been covered to hide whatever was behind the large windows. I did notice several flags, one of the national flag of the US, the other was of an unknown design similar to an unusual crest which had been displayed on a wall next to another entrance into what had been a briefing room next to the General's private office.

"Alright, no more games. What the _Hell_ is going on?" I demanded instantly.

"Quiet a little mouth on her, doesn't she General?" The Colonel replied, with a slight smile.

"Indeed!" Replied the hulking man, with a raised eyebrow and polite nod towards me.

I didn't sign up for a history lesson, and nothing as vague as what the Archaeologist had begun to say, just enough to wet an appetite and yet say nothing at all. Now, myself and my parents are more than familiar with several Science Fiction shows on TV and in the movies, what those around us had begun to explain, sounded like a plot to a television show to me, at least reading behind the lines anyway. I took it all in, at least with a pinch of salt as I leaned back in my seat and laughed as my father was very interested in what they where explaining.

"Aliens, space travel, wormholes. This is Bat-Shit Crazy? No, it's impossible is what it is. Thank you for the stories, and the terrible meals. But, I'd like to go home now"

"Lucy, let them finish" My mother said, for the first time since we had been brought into the briefing room.

"Of all people Mom? I'm surprised that you're listing to this Shit. I know that the odds of humans being the only life in the universe to achieve intelligence, is beyond impossible. But, travelling to other worlds, from here? That's fairy-tales. You should actually write this one down, sounds like it could make a great TV show to me"

"General, isn't SG-Twelve due for their routine contact any time soon?"

"Yes Colonel, Airman? Contact the Gate Room and have them make contact with SG-Twelve and pull the drapes, let our guests see for themselves"

"Aye Sir"

Neither myself nor my parents, could have imagined what we were about to see with our own eyes as the curtains had finally been pulled open. A large and tall room, lay before and below the three of us as we slowly stood in unison, to walk towards the windows to look down upon a large ring-like device. An inner circle began to spin, almost as if someone had been remotely dialling an old style rotary telephone. The inner ring would stop momentarily, which had activated one of several lights on the device itself as a voice called out the words '_Chevron Locked_'. By the seventh call from the male voice, something amazing happened as inside of the ring, an energy vortex splashed outwards as if seeing someone throw a stone into a pond from beneath the surface of the water, before it returned into what had looked like water suspended vertically.

"What the F, what is that thing?" I called out, in shock and awe.

"What you are looking at, is the event horizon of a stable wormhole, which is connected to an identical gate on a world, a little over seventy thousand light-years away from Earth" Major Carter explained with a smile.

"Wait, through that Gateway, is another planet?" My father asked, with a large smile of awe.

"Indeed"

"You say that a lot, Hulk" I called out, without turning away from the circular device. "Wait, why are you showing this to us. Isn't this sort of stuff supposed to be classified?"

"Beyond Top Secret, young Miss Collins" Replied General Hammond, slowly.

"Call me Lucy. General, why are we here?"

"For several years now, we have been exploring other worlds through the Stargate, we have made allies of other races, unfortunately at the same time? We have made several enemies. As such, we have designed and constructed a prototype vehicle, which if successful? Will be capable of defending this planet and it's population. The theory that three of you have proposed, appears to be the missing link that we have been looking for to complete the work. Theoretically of course, this vehicle should be capable of short burst into interstellar space" Doctor Jackson replied slowly.

"You mean a Starship?"

"Sign those papers, and all will be revealed. We need your help"

For the first time since I could remember, my own father looked like a kid in a toy store at the very mention of the word '_Starship_', I think that deep down, he was imagining the Enterprise. Now, although we had signed a provisional None Disclosure Agreement, before arriving in that very room. Another was placed before us by the General and those beneath his command, along with what had looked like a Contract of sorts. I had yet to turn eighteen years old, and even in the US, I was not classified as an Adult. As such, both of my parents would have to co-sign both the N.D.A. and the Contract placed before me. After reading what had been placed before me twice thoroughly, to make sure that I was seeing what had been read? I finally singed both lengthy documents which my father had co-signed instantly, as had my mother.

One hour after signing the N.D.A. myself and my parents where put into an unmarked van once again, and taken to a U.S. Air Force airfield and flow across the United States before arriving at the one place on the entire planet that I could not have imagined, the fabled Area Fifty-One. We passed through so much security that my head was spinning from all of the security protocols, just to even step out into a single large hanger. My jaw instantly hit the ground at what I saw, I could barely look away from the strangest looking aircraft I had ever seen. Standing high off the ground on three large landing gears, a deep black stealth fighter stood before the three of us, with two large downwards and forwards swept wings which measured by my estimations at the time as five and a half metres high, thirty metres in length and close to eight metres in width.

"Holy Shit, she's beautiful"

"Lucy, language" Called out my father, as he slowly stepped forwards as if get a closer look. "Is this, is this an alien ship?"

"No, built entirely from the ground up, right here at Groom Lake. Although loosely based on what we had learned from other failed experiments with alien technology. This way please" Major Carter replied, as she motioned for us to follow her.

The Major was right, the aircraft or spaceship, had enormous potential. The damned thing was so advanced, it was decades ahead of the most sophisticated known jet fighters of the time and even capable of not only orbital, but spaceflight. The problem was, the fighter was designed to carry what they had called a Hyperspace engine, our calculations where actually what they had said, the missing piece to a much larger puzzle. We spent days, weeks working alongside of the brilliant designers of what we had come to know as being called _X-302_ _Hyperspace Fighter_.

"I see what the problem is, this whatever you call it, the power source? Doesn't generate enough power to create a stable vortex. It'll rip the fighter and the pilot apart, the moment this 302 enters the window. You need more power, or a larger generator to project the vortex"

"Lucy? The 302's Hyperspace generator, is specifically designed for that ship. It's much more compact that anything else known, anything larger? Simply won't fit inside of the craft. We need to find a way to make this one work" Replied one of the chief designers of the craft.

"I understand that Sarah? It simply won't work, you need more power for the generator to activate. There must be something out there, I mean come on? That beauty is designed for outer space!"

As if in answer to everyone's prayers, well not everyone as a new friend, Doctor Daniel Jackson had been killed while on assignment, a much more powerful energy source had fallen into our preverbal laps, eight months after our arrival at the secret facility. By this time, I had officially turned eighteen and had moved out of what had been the quarters on the base that I had shared with my parents and into my own quarters down the corridor and to the left. I had my own life to live now, although in the United States, I wasn't officially classified as an Adult? The U.S. Military had granted me certain access to throughout the base, but only in relation to the X-302 Project as a Special Consultant, as where my parents.

The first test of the newly redesigned X-302 had proceeded exactly as I had predicted after spending every waking free moment, studying the new power source and the design of the vessel. With Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter as pilot and co-pilot, the vessel almost tore itself apart during the first window test in the middle of a crisis situation back at what I had come to know as Stargate Command.

"Sarah I told you that that, power source is highly unstable. Carter and O'Neill? Got lucky. We need more time to analyse this new… I can't even pronounce it's name"

"Naquadria" Replied the tall, beautiful blonde scientist and engineer.

"Whatever, it's highly unstable. The buffers that you put in place? Just can't stabilise the instability in the N… that _Quad_ thingy"

"Lucy, you don't understand the full gravity of the situation. I've been working on this for years. If that gate explodes? It will take out half of America with it, and plunge the rest of this planet into a new Ice-Age"

"I understand that. But this fighter? Is our only hope for the moment, destroying an untested plane first time out on a confab? Is foolish. I need more time with the _Quad_ thingy to make it work as projected"

"We don't have any time left, Lucy. We're almost, out of time"

Out of time, somehow it's always out of time. In the days which had followed, Stargate Command had saved the day with the destruction of the Prototype X-302 in deep space after attaching the still active Stargate to the underside of the fighter as piloted by Colonel O'Neill on what had appeared to be an almost suicide mission. I got the feeling that he had taken on more than his fare share of those during his long and illustrious career.

The destruction of the X-302, had brought a closure to the miniature Hyperspace Generator project, for the next generation of the production line model, a much smaller and more compact version of the fighter had been placed into service as a fighter-interceptor, minus the engine on which I had worked. My parents chose to make a home for themselves in the United States, close to Cheyenne Mountain and the Stargate Program while still under the watchful eye of the Military. I thought that I was done for, I would be relieved of my position as a Civilian Specialist and like my parents? Ordered to remain silent, under penalty of life imprisonment without Due-Process or Parole, we would simply vanish from all records. I could not have imagined what was about to happen.

I was reassigned to another project, a program that I could never have imagined even possible, Earth's very first Starship, the X-303 Prometheus. In the years which had followed, I not only assisted with the engine design of the first starship, but had also assisted in designing the engines of the subsequent production of the largest and most powerful vessel to have been designed by the species I had come to know as called Tau'Ri, the humans of Earth, a class of vessel often referred to as the BC-304, Daedalus Class Battlecruiser and Warship and those of her class of Inter-Galactic Starships.

Although I had never stepped through the Stargate? I have had the pleasure of joining several research assignments onboard of three of those ships which I had helped, in some small part to become a reality. I have stepped foot on fourteen different worlds including what had been codenamed as Alpha Site, the Tau'Ri's off world base of operations and once, I have had the pleasure of sitting in one of those front-line fighters, the F-302 for what had been called by it's pilot, a little joy-ride.

That is my story of how I travelled in my life as an almost underachiever in life, to become a valuable asset to my home world's combined military force. After I write this, I will be beamed onboard of the USS Odyssey and transported from Earth, across the galaxy and the great divide of inter-galactic space for an assignment in another galaxy. It seems that someone in a city known as Atlantis, had once developed a new form of compact Hyperspace Window Generator, for one of their own vessels. As one of the leading authorities on Earth in Hyperspace technologies? I have been assigned to analyse this remarkable piece of technology to perhaps complete the work I had once been drafted to assist in creating, a similar piece of technology.

From what I hear? Doctor Rodney McKay is a good and honourable man, although as I have been told by the now Colonel Samantha Carter? A little eccentric. I look forwards to meeting him and sharing in his incredible design.

The funny thing is? I begged my parents not to leave the _Stargate Program_. I knew that something else was out there, just waiting for us to discover it. They would have loved this, all of it. But, my parents are happy in their semi-retirement, as sometimes they return to the Program when needed, but not often.

Doctor Lucile 'Lucy' Collins.

Hyperspace Technologies Specialist.

Tau'Ri.

Signing Off.


End file.
